


There's only so much music, you know?

by PieHeda



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Bees, F/F, Music, Vibration, hard to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 19:18:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10883253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieHeda/pseuds/PieHeda
Summary: Michelle Nguyen doesn't really like anyone.Except maybe Maureen.Maureen is ok.





	There's only so much music, you know?

**Author's Note:**

> Largely based on The April Monologues.

Michelle heard the bell from the back of the store. 

Or not the bell. 

The door used to have a shopkeeper’s bell, suspended on a flexible spiral of steel so that the door struck it when opening and closing. Then she added a second, smaller bell, that added a  _ tinkle _ to the first bell’s  _ clang _ . And then she added jingle bells to the doorknob, adding a  _ ching _ to the  _ tinkle _ and  _ clang _ , and she chanted the incantations to raise the temporary staff out of the mud, and they all closed their eyes and listened to the new music, which she called bell-pop. They marveled at how no performance was the same. They made bootlegs of people entering the store, and swapped them and discussed their favorites. 

Then Michelle became annoyed at how  _ all  _ the shops in Night Vale had bells now. “Bell-pop is over,” she declared, removed the bells, and allowed the staff to dissolve back into the mud. She began working in solitude that day. 

So she did not hear a bell. She heard the space where there had been bells, the void they had once filled. She heard the  _ whoosh _ of air from outside, accompanied by the barely audible susurrus of her hair stirring in the breeze that rushed in, and then the muffled  _ whiff _ of the door gently shutting (she had insulated the door frame so that it would close as quietly as possible). 

“Welcome to Dark Owl Records,” she said as insincerely as possible. “Now get out, we’re closed… Oh. Maureen.” 

Maureen. Nervous, jaw tight, hair down, hands hidden in her pockets. 

“I…” Maureen stepped forward, hesitated, sighed, and took another step. “I know that you’re closed. But there’s this album you gave me, the sound of bees...”

“Oh right. You can keep that. I love it. It’s one of my favorite things. But I’m done listening to it. Just, don’t share it with anyone else.That ruins it.” 

“I won’t! I mean, I don’t want to. But I... I’d like to listen to it. With you. Or whatever.”

“Is there something wrong with it?” said Michelle. 

“No, but it’s just so different, and the way it makes me feel…”

Michelle cocked her head to the side, watching Maureen. “Yes,” she said, allowing a hint of a smile, just at the edge of her lips. “It’s especially good on headphones.” 

“Yes, headphones are good, or whatever, but I mean loud. Really loud, so that you can feel it. Not just in your ears, all around.” 

“I’m really into silence,” said Michelle. “I know, it’s SO popular, but…” 

“I know, I know, but will you… will you just listen with me?” Maureen held out her hand, clutching the cassette. Michelle could see the cover art on the case that she had drawn herself - a scientific illustration of a bee, with anatomy markers. 

“The store sound system is in the back office,” said Michelle. “Lock the door. I don’t want some random customer wandering in, wanting to buy things.” 

She clicked the cassette into place, and the buzzing hum filled the store speakers. Michelle smiled. She liked how warm and soft it sounded at precisely this level, exactly the volume of a bee hive from 50 feet away. 

“It has to be louder.” 

Michelle turned the knob. It sounded busy now, the sound of work, of production. The sound of creation. It was… interesting. It made her feel nervous standing still, made her hands and feet feel like moving. 

“I’m not sure I like that.” 

“It’s not quite right. Here,” Maureen took the knob, and adjusted the volume up in slow increments. “Almost… not quite…” she moved the equalizer sliders, increasing the bass, lowering the treble, until… “there.” 

It was small at first, barely noticeable. A stirring of the hair on Michelle’s arms, an involuntary shiver. And then she could feel that it was actually her skin trembling, just slightly. And then she could feel it deeper, in her muscles, behind her eyes. 

“That’s… I’ve never…” Michelle’s teeth buzzed in her head. She stopped trying to put it into words. She looked at her hands, watched them quiver just out of focus. She touched her face, her neck, feeling the sound reverberate through her. 

Maureen watched her, one hand at her side, slowly stroking her own ribs. Michelle approached her, questioning her only with her eyes. 

Maureen lifted her shirt to reveal a pink line across her ribs, drawn in the puckered flesh of a healed wound. Michelle reached for it, still watching Maureen’s eyes. She touched the scar, her fingers gliding across it with the vibrations of their flesh. It tickled her fingertips. Maureen squirmed and grimaced; she supposed it tickled her as well. 

Michelle spread her hand and covered it, feeling it vibrate just slightly different against her palm. Maureen sighed, her eyelids lowered, her shoulders loosened and settled.

“Hatchet?” Michelle asked. 

Maureen nodded. “You?” 

Michelle shook her head. Life had, so far, left no permanent marks on her. She lowered her eyes, sad that she couldn’t make a fair trade on this intimacy. 

Maureen placed her hand on Michelle’s cheek, bringing her gaze back. Her hand buzzed pleasantly against Michelle’s face. She touched Michelle’s lips with her thumb, creating an itch that was delightful and nearly unbearable. It reminded Michelle of humming with her lips just barely together, like she’d learned to do in Night Vale High School choir, where she first learned how painfully, horribly ecstatic it felt to make music. 

She wasn’t sure how much longer she could take it. Then Maureen replaced her thumb with her lips, just barely touching Michelle’s, the hum of the bees vibrating in them and between them, both of them on the very edge of being unable to endure it, like an unspoken dare to break contact first. Maureen’s chest just barely touched Michelle’s, and she felt a stirring in response. She took Maureen’s hand and raised it to her breast. 

Maureen allowed the vibrations to dance her hand across Michelle’s breast, which responded almost immediately with a small, hard knot, pressing through her thin vintage sweater. She curled a finger around the nipple, circling it, playing with the intensity of the vibrations depending on slight alterations in pressure. 

Michelle’s lips pressed slightly harder, her breath on and in Maureen’s mouth as she exhaled sharply. Maureen fluttered her tongue across Michelle’s lower lip. She felt a different frequency resonate against her mouth as Michelle hummed her response. She explored Michelle’s other breast with her spare hand, seeking a similar reaction. Michelle’s legs shook unsteadily, and she sat back on the desk, perching on the edge. 

Maureen trailed her hand down Michelle’s ribs, to her hips, her thigh, the edge of her skirt. She met Michelle’s eyes. Michelle nodded, and Maureen traced a path up her inner thigh. She leaned Michelle back on the desk, and cupped her mound in her hand, their shared vibrations traveling up her wrist. She watched Michelle’s face; relaxed, eyelids heavy. She watched her breath catch as she allowed one finger to part her labia.

She slid two fingers in, spreading her wet folds, gliding slowly up and down on either side of her clit, tremoring against her. Michelle closed her eyes, focusing on the buzzing in her ears and on her clit, all the same, the music in her and on her and against her. 

Maureen added her thumb, delicately stroking Michelle’s hood, so that her three fingers surrounded the clit, thrumming all around it, bringing it to a pulsing rhythm all its own. Michelle pressed her eyelids tighter, pushing out everything but the sound and Maureen’s touch. She felt the music in everything, buzzing into her ass through the desk beneath her, through the murmuring tremble of her clothes, through the soles of the shoes on her feet. She sank down into it, into herself, finding the blank, the space, filling the gap with the exquisite sound. 

It swelled within her, and she spasmed and stifled a cry, keeping her mouth tightly shut, humming her orgasm, feeling it in her face along with the hot rush of blood under her skin. Maureen’s lips and tongue were on her mouth once more, feeling and tasting her groans. She teased out the last bits of Michelle’s climax and groaned against her mouth, humming with her at a different tone.

The cassette clicked. Silence. 

The memory of the vibrations tingled on Michelle’s skin. 

Maureen removed her hand from her skirt. Michelle got to her feet, smoothing her clothes. 

Maureen shuffled out of her way in the small office, put her hands in her pockets. 

“I should go.” Her eyes flicked to Michelle’s, then down. “I have to copy edit Cecil’s latest  _ Jaws _ slashfic tonight.”

“Ugh.” Michelle barely sounded like she was catching her breath. “That was  _ not _ in your job description.” 

“I know, but I need the college credit.” She traced indecipherable shapes on the beige carpet with her toe. 

Michelle ejected the cassette and placed it back in the case. Maureen put it in her pocket. 

“I guess I should…” 

“Maureen?” Michelle’s back was to her, readjusting the equalizers on the stereo. “You being here? It’s cool. If you want to stop by and listen to music again, that is. I can find something new for us to listen to next time.” 

Maureen. Jaw loose, hair disheveled, hands idle. 

“Yes. I guess, yeah.” 

Maureen walked out the door into the desert evening, making sure that no evidence of the smile remained on her face. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Welcome to Night Vale fic! It's very different from what I usually write. But then, Night Vale. Right? 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at PieHeda. Find me there if you have prompts, or just want to say hi.


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